My Dear One,

Fairy tales.  The timeless overarching theme … good versus evil.  There is an assumption that the two exist.  The writer begins the story with the presupposition that the reader recognizes the reality of their existence.  There are no lessons to be learned if that preconception has not already been made.  Working on that foundation, the tale unfolds, with good versus evil playing out throughout the lines in a myriad of ways, but the premise is always the same.  The struggle between these two contrasts, the constant battles in the larger war.  Who will win?  Who should win?

Fairy tales play out in a world full of many different characters, each with their own morals, values and ideals.  They all begin with the same four words … once upon a time.  Once, somewhere and sometime in the past.  Time, as we know it, which we all enter and exit.  All of our stories begin with the same four words.  We make our own entrance into time, but we have no control over when we enter, when we begin.  We make our own exit out of time, but as with our beginning, we have no control over our departure, when we leave.  No matter what one believes about reality, this we can all agree upon.  There is intriguing mystery surrounding our beginning and end.  We find ourselves thrust into time, slowly awakening throughout our childhood to the fact that we are actually here.

We realize we find ourselves in this very world … there are no other places we can possibly exist.  We come to see the place of our existence as a very dichotomous land.  It doesn’t take long before we acknowledge the polarity in the world in which we find ourselves living.  That polarity, that dichotomy, being good and evil.

Aren’t we all just the world in miniature?  Good and evil, contained in each of us, if we dare admit it.  Our life battles, the struggles within our person, as we journey through the days, waging war within ourselves.  For most times, we are our own worst enemy.  We say we want the good to be the victor, but then we purposely and sometimes viciously choose the evil.  In our lives, who will win?  Who should win?

Which of the two do we see first?  Everyone’s journey is not the same.  We will see varying degrees of the two throughout our lives.  But which do we learn first?  And how does this impact the decisions we make in our lives?  Do all of us truly get to see both good and evil?  Does it depend on our own self-awareness?  Who among us shuts our eyes and pretends one or the other does not exist?

Once upon my time, I entered into this world, to grow and to understand what good and evil represented.  I seemed to come into time with a preprogrammed code which caused me to instinctively recognize the difference.  I witnessed good … it was seen through my eyes in the kindness of people, the beauty of nature, and the pleasure of music.  And I have witnessed evil, the kind of evil which sears you with its brand, makes you question your very identity, and reaches in with its dark hands to try to rip apart your soul.

All fairy tales end with the same three words … happily ever after.  Good ultimately triumphs.  There are no more tears, no more struggles, no more heartaches … evil has been defeated, vanquished, overcome.  A beautiful thought, one which compels us to revisit these tales, time and again, to pass them on to our progeny, to sigh in the bliss of the shimmering endings.

And so, my dear one, I will leave you with this question.  Is this possible, this happily ever after, or is this all …

… a fairy tale?

All my love,

Your Never Sleeping Beauty

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale of all.  ~Hans Christian Andersen